Swallows and Amazons on YouTube

[Hwyl]

This is part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhnobLoqPjM

[sailboy3]

I love the series and found it there about a week ago and one of these days I'm going to watch it

[Roger Long]

Thanks. I can't wait to watch this, even though things are pretty muddy on You Tube.

I'm probably here in this forum tonight because of having read every one of those books at an impressionable age. I tried hard to get the videos years ago but they evidently never made them available in a US compatible format.

[Hwyl]

Yes they did, a few years ago Steven Bauer had a "showing" at his house. I'm waiting for #7 to load at the moment.

[StevenBauer]

I just watched the whole thing. :) Thanks, Gareth.
Roger, the WoodenBoat store sells Coot Club and The Big Six on DVD or VHS. They used to sell Swallows and Amazons but they don't anymore. If you want I would be happy to lend you my VHS copy of S&A, but the Youtube version was pretty good on our computer. My daughter says it's her favorite movie, the kids have seen it dozens of times. We did have a fun S&A party here years ago, a bunch of Forumites from all over the state came and we watched all three movies and ate pemmican and drank grog, I mean ginger beer.:D
How long ago was that Gareth?

Steven

[StevenBauer]

And for those that don't know there is The Arthur Ransome Society or TARS.

www.arthur-ransome.org


Steven

[Hwyl]

I think it was 4 years. I'm loading number 8, accursed slow DSL, it's getting to the exciting part.

I bought Adam the book for Christmas, it still has not arrived. He may find "Titty" to be a hilarious name. Eight year olds are sophisticated.

[StevenBauer]

Here is a link to the original thread. It was late 2004/early 2005. Lots of good Arthur Ransom info there. Now I need to go looking for those pictures.

www.woodenboat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=44671


Steven

[Hwyl]

Interestingly none of the young actors did much to follow through, except for Susan (Suzanna Hamilton) who seems to have done some more film work and Titty (Sophie Neville) has done some assistant directing.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072233/

[StevenBauer]

Got em! I had to dig deep. :D

http://im1.shutterfly.com/media/47b7cc24b3127ccec29e28c4f8cf00000010O00AbNnLhizaOW IPbz4S/cC/f%3D0/ps%3D50/r%3D0/rx%3D550/ry%3D400/

The "grown-ups":

http://im1.shutterfly.com/media/47b7cc24b3127ccec29e1e14793400000010O00AbNnLhizaOW IPbz4S/cC/f%3D0/ps%3D50/r%3D0/rx%3D550/ry%3D400/

I guess that was back before Gareth got so camera-shy. ;)

Steven

[Hwyl]

We haven't seen Joe Dupere for a while.


Thanks for linking to the old thread, it ended up being a great one.

[Roger Long]

If you want I would be happy to lend you my VHS copy of S&A

Thanks, I would love to borrow it. It deserves to be watched in comfort with someone as much as at higher quality. I wish I'd though to check in later years about domestic availability.

One of the strange things about this whole series of books is that the boats are real although the characters and events are fictional. A high point of a family trip to Scotland in 2003 was a stop at the Windermere museum to see the actual "Amazon". "Swallow" has either been lost or is somewhere else.

http://www.rogerlongboats.com/images/Amazon.jpg

It was surreal and wonderful moment to take this picture. The quizzical look on my son's face is due to total ignorance of what his father is so excited about. I'd given the boys the books telling them they were my favorite books from my childhood and they would love them. They read about two pages each and said they were the most boring things they ever read and Ohio must have been a very strange place to grow up. Of course, they had a computer by this time which is probably the generation gap that had a lot to do with there being no "Swallows and Amazons" party at our house.

I will say in their defense though that the both became voracious readers and incredible writers. The son in the picture read Plutarch's Lives in 8 th grade just for his interest and not even as a school assignment. I've never read that book so I guess I can't get too exercised over their lack of enthusiasm for Arthur Ransom:)

[Hwyl]

One of the strange things about this whole series of books is that the boats are real although the characters and events are fictional.



If you delve into the topic a little more, Roger you'll find that the characters are somewhat based on real people.

It's a widely held belief that Uncle Jim/Captain Flint is Ransome himself. The children are based on the Altounyan family http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swallows_and_Amazons. Roger Altounyan went on to be significant in the field of Asthma research http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Altounyan.

Researching the links can be a time consuming endeavour, and the links are mostly speculative, but fun.

Mike Field aka "Wooden Boat Fittings" is quite the expert, as was the sadly missed forumite Ian Wright.
Andrew Craig-Bennet lives close to where both Peter Duck and Nancy Blackett are moored

[reddog]

Gareth;
Thanks for the link.I have watched all ten episodes.Brings back memories of watching them on TV in the 60's or early 70's.Must have been on the CBC.It's a great series and I really like the fact that it portrays a group of pre teens out sailing,camping and exploring on their own.God forbid that children could do all that and unsupervised to boot.Different times.

Earl

[Don Kurylko]

Yes Earl, and with nary a lifejacket in sight! :)

[reddog]

Yes Don,I did stuff like that as a kid as well as had a jack knife and a pellet rifle when a little older.It's sad that we have gotten to the point where all play has to be organized and supervised by adults.

Earl

[sailboy3]

Just watched it the other day.

[Bert Langley]

Thanks for the link. I was in the third grade when a well-meaning nun suggested I read the Picts and the Martyrs. I am sure she thought it was a nice religious book. Needless to say I was hooked ans haunted the library to find more by the same author. Might have been the first time I realized one guy could write more than one book.

Anyway, great memories.

[Hwyl]

I just read "Arthur Ransome, Captain Flint's Trunk" by Christina Hardyment. Good reading for the Ransome obsessed.

[Hughman]

I have a DVD of 'S&A, and a VHS... 'The Coot Club' and 'Big Six' VHS have gone astray

I'm reading 'Missy' to my 8 yo also...

[Thorne]

I checked amazon.com and couldn't find any DVD's of the first book / episode "Swallows & Amazons" in US (region 1) format. They had several for the UK at inflated prices, but the same thing can be ordered from amazon.co.uk much cheaper -- you will need a hacked DVD player to view them, however.

From viewing it on YouTube, the first book makes a much better film than the two Coot Club DVD's (available from our hosts), with a lot of great small boat sailing footage. Well worth getting if you've got a region-free DVD player.

[trefor]

just got finished watching it over the weekend. i've only read two of the books, "swallows and amazon" and "swallowdale", but they are more than partly responsible for the nearly complete small sailboat sitting in my garage.

trevor

[Thorne]

The entire series is highly recommended for anyone with the 'boat bug' or who likes classic English childrens literature (what the Harry Potter books purport to be).

The books are all fantasy, of course, but some are more 'fantastic' / less likely than others -- which can come as a surprise to the reader. Most are set firmly in the 'real world' of the 30's, but a couple range around the world and include tangling with Chinese Pirates in the China sea, and ditto with English Pirates in the Caribbean.

All are available from our kind hosts at Wooden Boat -
http://www.woodenboatstore.com/Swallows-and-Amazons/productinfo/300-601/

[Hwyl]

You ought to read the Hardyment book, Thorne, there's some really interesting source stuff in there. I'm not a writer, but was surprised that Ransome put the vignettes together and then strung a plot around them. In retrospect, it's mostly apparent, especially in "Secret Water".

[StevenBauer]

Is that book in your library, Gareth, or did you borrow it from someone else? If it's yours maybe I could borrow it?
I just got your email, we've been in NY for a funeral. I'll call later.


Steven

[Thorne]

I'll check out Hardyment. Looks interesting!

[Hwyl]

Is that book in your library, Gareth, or did you borrow it from someone else? If it's yours maybe I could borrow it?
I just got your email, we've been in NY for a funeral. I'll call later.


Steven
Yes I own it, I was hopping you'd ask for it. It can go on a WBf tour. Thorne it will eventually get to you. I'm guessing Roger Long would like to see it too.

[woodenMFV]

Found the Book on the BootSale, and it's great...

there are even nice drawings and maps from Arthur Ransome himself in it. But you have to read the foreword of him and the editor, it explains that it's not all fictional, and how his childhood is described...

I hope you are able to read the text, otherwise tell me and I get you the full-resolution scans.

PS: "Books and Authors that influenced us (wooden-boaters) in our childhood"[/B] would be a [B]good Thread Idea ? ...Jule Verne, etc?

Title:
http://www5.picturepush.com/photo/a/2799443/220/2799443.jpg (http://picturepush.com/public/2799443)

http://www5.picturepush.com/photo/a/2799448/220/2799448.jpg (http://picturepush.com/public/2799448)

Authors Note:
http://www3.picturepush.com/photo/a/2799441/220/2799441.jpg (http://picturepush.com/public/2799441)

Editors Note:
http://www3.picturepush.com/photo/a/2799446/220/2799446.jpg (http://picturepush.com/public/2799446)

Maps:
http://www1.picturepush.com/photo/a/2799449/220/2799449.jpg (http://picturepush.com/public/2799449)

Wild Cat Island:
http://www3.picturepush.com/photo/a/2799451/220/2799451.jpg (http://picturepush.com/public/2799451)

[snow(Alan H)]

Watched the 10 parts last night - that was a blast from the past. BTW part 4 has some good footage of c1930 boats in it.

[Lewisboats]

I gotta stick my nose in here...for those who are unscrupulous or have exhausted all moral ways...it is available on the web using peer to peer networking. A quick search on E-Mule pulls up a bunch of hits, and torrents are available too. If you are watching it on Youtube it isn't a legal copy anyways and technically if you download it isn't illegal...just uploading or sharing it is. The file is 745 mb for an .avi.

[Wooden Boat Fittings]

.
A, ah, considerably better downloadable version of the Lake map is available via the All Things Ransome (http://www.allthingsransome.net/) website.

I say 'better' because this one map covers all events and places mentioned in all the five Lake series books -- not just those things relevant to the particular book in which a map appears (as is the case above, for instance.)

The site is an excellent storehouse of information relating to Ransome himself and the stories.

Mike

[martin schulz]

Thanks for the link...

I had it running on my 2nd Flatscreen while working and enjoyed it a lot.